Exploring the Impact of Urban Road Network Characteristics on City Fringe Tourist Areas: A Case Study of Xi’an, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper takes the city fringe tourist areas as the research object, compares and analyzes the multi-industry development around the city fringe tourist areas with the scenic spots in the built-up areas of the city, and uses the spatial syntax to analyze the characteristics of the city fringe tourist areas in the road network. City fringe tourist areas is a new concept that appears gradually in the process of urban development, and the author discusses this research object from a novel perspective, and uses different methods of spatial syntax to characterize different types of roads, which is innovative and has certain research value. However, the paper still has the following problems that need to be revised:

 

1.The feasibility of using POI to characterize city fringe tourist areas is not described in the text, and the advantages of POI research methods and the reasons and feasibility of choosing to use POI for analysis should be added.

2.Table1 and table2 list the categories and data of POIs, but some types of POIs are not the main ones analyzed in the text, and the listing of data that were not analyzed should be removed to make the overall readability better.

3.After conducting POI analysis, only discussed the city fringe tourist areas from each POI major category, did not summarize the characteristics of the given city fringe tourist areas as a whole, it is recommended that the authors add relevant expressions.

4.In 3.1.1, the specific software comparison and operation process are mentioned at the end, the discussion of such issues should be avoided in the paper, just say that you use a certain tool to do a certain thing can be done, don’t discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each tool.

5. Table5 only on a diagonal line of data to analyze, from the figure can be seen, basically all the data correlation is more significant, whether the data on more dimensions can be discussed, analyze the reasons for their generation.

6. The pictures in the article need to be re-optimized, and the format of the legend needs to be modified with reference to the pictures of relevant academic journals.

7. The number of references in the article can be supplemented with relevant studies in the last 5 years to enrich the scientific nature of the article, while the reference format of the article needs to be checked, such as: "Zhang, Yu, et al. 'Revisiting 'Spatial Syntax'." The Architect 2004(03):33-44" is inconsistent with other formats and needs to be standardized.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Good

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The main question addressed by the paper can be considered an important aspect to be studied. Data acquisition and processing are also relevant to the field. Space Syntax Model cannot be considered a new model, but in the tourism area it is not recurrent. The contribution of this study to the area can be developed, as its literature review is not enough to support model choice. A deeper literature review will also help discussion improvement.

Furthermore, the text must be properly referenced (for example, “Different from the development of foreign tourist areas, due to China's early degree of motorization is not enough, far from the city of the scenic area is often not easy to reach, the scenic area within the city of the greater attraction to tourists, in order to play a scenic area on the regional economy to promote the role of the scenic area, scenic area facilities within the city tend to be more complete. In contrast, some of China's urban fringe tourist areas were underdeveloped in the early days, and the surrounding roads mainly bear the function of transit traffic. With the gradual popularity of urban fringe tourist areas, the peripheral roads have to bear the 66 function of tourist traffic again. With the double traffic pressure of transit traffic and tourist traffic, the road facilities planned in the early days may not be able to meet the demand”; “Spatial syntax in the research with tourist attractions is divided into the study of the internal space of the scenic area and the study of the connection relationship between the scenic area and the external road network. The internal space of the scenic area studied the impact of traffic organization inside the scenic area on tourist flow”)

Instead of terms such as “we believe”, authors can support their ideas by adding more literature.

Figures 1 and 2 are not necessary. Furthermore, there is no indication of their source. Authors can mention in the text the main aspects that they want to highlight instead of adding these figures.

 

To improve the paper, authors can consider papers such as https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.138244 and 10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2017.01.007 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, your article has originality. Probably, the article is of interest to researchers who deal with this issue. But for most tourism researchers, your article is not of significant interest. You plan to publish it in the Tourism, Culture, and Heritage section of the magazine. I believe that your article does not fit this section.

Questions arise again. And first of all, please explain what is the significance of your article for the development of world science in the field of tourism? You only study the experience of China. It is clear that the model research site can be any region of the world where researchers conduct research. But what is the significance of this experience for other countries?

You conclude that when developing the city network in the future, it is necessary to take into account the development of the tourism sector. But this conclusion is an axiom. This conclusion does not need to be proved. Then the question is: what is the significance of your research?

Also pay attention to figures 11, 12 and 16 - they are poorly readable. It is difficult to understand the information.

 

In general, I advise you to choose another magazine to publish.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study chooses Kunming Lake in Xi'an City as the research objective, and obtains the industry development characteristics of urban fringe tourist areas through the comparison of POI data, and explores the development trend of traffic in urban fringe tourist areas based on the spatial syntactic model by quantifying the road network structure characteristics using the indexes such as depth, integration, and selectivity. The manuscript is well developed and well structured. The topic presented is relevant for publication and presents scientific potential for publication. However, I suggest that the theoretical framework of the manuscript is more solid and robust. The quantity/quality of references at the end of the manuscript should be further developed and increase publication potential. Further reflection on the contributions (theoretical and practical), as well as the limitations of the study and lines of investigation for future research, will also be advisable. However, the assessment of the document is positive and the quality of the empirical study presented by the authors stands out.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This study chooses Kunming Lake in Xi'an City as the research objective, and obtains the industry development characteristics of urban fringe tourist areas through the comparison of POI data, and explores the development trend of traffic in urban fringe tourist areas based on the spatial syntactic model by quantifying the road network structure characteristics using the indexes such as depth, integration, and selectivity. The manuscript is well developed and well structured. The topic presented is relevant for publication and presents scientific potential for publication. However, I suggest that the theoretical framework of the manuscript is more solid and robust. The quantity/quality of references at the end of the manuscript should be further developed and increase publication potential. Further reflection on the contributions (theoretical and practical), as well as the limitations of the study and lines of investigation for future research, will also be advisable. However, the assessment of the document is positive and the quality of the empirical study presented by the authors stands out.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, your article has become more informative after revision. I believe that the article can be recommended for publication in this journal. But technically, the article is not ready. Note the quality of the illustrative material. Most drawings have poor image quality, where it is impossible to understand what is depicted. Or the content of the material of the figure is not clear.

We are talking about the figures on page 5, figure 5 - on page 9, figure 6 - page 10, figures 11, 12 - on page 15 and figure 16 - on page - 19.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx